Well, just finished the game last night. Uh, I think I spoke too soon with my previous raves. Turns out I was only 20% through the game at that point, and then it started getting pretty crazy. Seems most of the characters in the game are like psychos from a comic book. Whether it be Blake Dexter, his son Lenny, Wade, Birdie, or those whacko "Saints", it appears they were intent on giving the game a whimsical tongue in cheek nature that doesn't seem to fit a Hitman game. Even a lot of the thugs sound overly dense, as if from a Batman game. Just when I'm thinking they're portraying 47 himself as being off put by it, evidenced by the oft smirking expressions he's rendered with, he's donning a short silk robe that has him looking far too effeminate.
I'm sorry, as much as I like some of the graphics and gameplay elements, there's just too much about this game that is odd or annoying. The hand to hand is ridiculous, you have to hope you never have to use it, and the disguises I find even on Normal can be too easily detected. Now I know why the developer commentary of the gameplay demo videos had them laughing a lot. It seems they put whatever twisted ideas they thought would be amusing to themselves in this game, without any concern for traditional Hitman fans. Rather than keeping with Hman's serious tone, they went off on a fantastical joyride that at times looks like the kind of bizarre comedy Remedy put in the original Max Payne games, except here it clearly doesn't fit.
In short, Hitman Absolution is candy coated graphics in a dysfunctional, redneck amusement park world that just shows how much the series has lost it's way. It's "Instinct" blending is too contrived and flawed, it's detection system either too forgiving or too restrictive, and it's save system is a joke. I've had times where some cops while wearing a cop disguise will completely ignore me or pester the fuck out of me, and AI at times can spot you doing something suspicious from far away, while at others you can get out of a closet right in front of them. The checkpoints when you load them bring back literally ALL of the enemies you'd killed in that area up to that point, which negates any reward of struggling to get to them without detection locking them out.